Disposable is fast becoming a dirty word. The glory days of the
throwaway society are behind us. Instead, the need to save landfill
space, trees, oil, water, and electricity, as well as to reduce air and
ground pollution, has led us back to recycling-common practice in all
but the last few decades. What makes recycling an issue now is primarily
waste reduction. Landfills are close to full in the West. They are
already full in several Eastern states, where recycling is being
enforced. Out here, our current voluntary recycling of two or three
items (bottles, cans, newspapers) will likely soon become mandatory
recycling of five or six items (add plastics, yard waste, and other
paper products). Some communities are already enacting
garbage-separation ordinances, per state mandate (California's
Integrated Solid Waste Management Act demands that each city develop a
waste-reduction plan to reduce waste by 25 percent by 1995, 50 percent
by 2000). In the following pages, we share some readers' ideas on
making recycling easier, give you tips on how to expand your recycling
efforts easily, and offer a glimpse of recycling practices you can
anticipate-and help enact-in your community. Setting up your recycling:
some rules of thumb The first step is to determine the state of
recycling in your community. Call your city planning, public works, or
sanitation department or local waste hauler to locate recycling centers
or to find out curbside pickup schedules. Find out everything the
recyclers will take; push them on what they're anticipating taking
in the future (this article will give you some ideas). A concerted
neighborhood effort can impel them to take more. Once you know what and
where you can recycle, determine how much room to set aside in your
house for storing recyclables. If you have curbside pickup, plan for
that time span (usually weekly or fortnightly). If you don't have
the imposed routine of curbside, set up your own schedule-weekly,
monthly, whatever-then plan holding space accordingly. Your best bet for
space planning is to accumulate your routine amount of recyclables and
measure it. Then set up your storage system, building in a little more
room. Bins or drawers should be easy to open and keep securely closed,
easy to empty, easy to clean slick. surfaces, no nooks and crannies).
If your recycler accepts compacted material, crush aluminum cans, stomp
down plastic bottles, break down cardboard boxes, put smaller glass jars
inside larger ones. Reducing bulk is particularly important if
you're limited to using only the bins supplied by your city's
recycling contractor. Unless you're remodeling your kitchen with
recycling storage solutions built in, keep kitchen storage small and
simple. Larger, intermediate storage is better placed elsewhere, in your
garage or garbage can storage area-closer to curb or car. Make sure
storage cabinets or shelves will accommodate community-issued bins-they
can be an odd size. Breaking down the waste stream Cutting down on the
amount of garbage you accumulate m the first place will put a
significant dent in your trash load (see page 104). How much of the
remaining garbage is recyclable? Technically, just about all of it is,
but a 50 percent recycling goal is quite feasible today; Seattle is
shooting for 60 percent by 1998. To see what doesn't need to go to
the dump, we've broken down typical household trash into its
component parts by volume.

PAPER AND PAPERBOARD

(42% of your trash) Newspapers are the largest single component of
landfills, 14 percent by volume. Oversupply of newspapers has reduced
recyclers' demand for them (some communities now pay recyclers to
take their newsprint). Legislation is forcing demand: in California,
newspapers must use 25 percent recycled stock by 1992, 50 percent by
2000. Paper mills are now rushing to build in de-inking capacity to
handle the recycled stock. There's also a ready market for
high-grade office and computer paper. To help set up a program in your
office, call your local recycler. If you generate your own supply of
excess computer paper, take it to your office for recycling if it
won't be picked up at home. Mixed paper stocks-letters, magazines,
catalogs, packaging-have little domestic market. Few recyclers take
magazines because removing the ink, the glossy clay paper coating, and
other contaminants is costly and difficult. And at present, it's
just too costly to print major magazines like Sunset on recycled paper,
which is heavier and more expensive than the paper this story is printed
on. Current recycled paper stocks are at best about 10 percent
post-consumer waste, 40 percent preconsumer waste (trimmings, roll ends,
misprints), and about 50 percent virgin paper. Mixed paper collected in
Seattle is shipped to the Far East, where it's sorted and recycled
or incinerated as fuel. Seattle "loses" money on this, but the
cost is still less than the expense of putting it in a landfill. You can
extend the usefulness of your magazines by passing them on to schools,
hospitals, senior centers, and other community centers where they can be
shared. One way to encourage paper recycling is to buy stationery,
computer paper, and other products made from recycled paper, and
products packaged in recycled paper. The chasing arrow symbol means the
product is recyclable; a legitimate label will say how to recycle it. If
the product is made from recycled materials, the arrow may be in a black
circle, or it may just say so on the label. You can also cut down on the
amount of junk mail you receive. Many catalogs and magazines will, at
your request, remove your name from their lists which they rent to
other vendors). They'll also make sure that multiple copies of the
same catalog don't go to one household under several different
names. Or write to Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing
Association, I I W. 42nd St., Box 3861, New York 10163. The association
will place your name on a computer tape that large list brokers check to
remove names from their clients' mailings. This can reduce your
unsolicited mail by up to 80 percent, though it may also stop some
mailings you want to keep getting.

FOOD AND YARD WASTE (24%) Many peelings and prunings are just too
good to throw away. Getting these items composted and back into your
garden-or a friend's garden-is your smartest move. For how to do
it, see the garden recycling article on page 120 of the September 1990
Sunset. The composter gift guide on page 132 of the December 1990 Sunset
gives ideas and sources for some useful tools. Seattle's recycling
program offers free compost bins to some of its customers; others who
don't compost can, for a $2 per month additional fee, have up to 20
bags or containers of yard waste collected each month. A private hauler
picks it up and takes it to a composting facility. Residents can also
cart their yard waste to community collection stations. Here, as in some
other cities, you can also pick up finished compost for your garden. San
Diego is one of many cities that collect old Christmas trees and put
them through a chipper, then use the mulch in city parks and streetside
plantings. Check with your public works or sanitation department for
tree pickups in your area.

GLASS (9%) The great thing about recycling glass is that, like
aluminum, it can be reused for its original purpose (most other
recyclables are reincarnated into something else). California has glass
legislation similar to its newsprint bill; it demands at least a 15
percent recycled content in glass containers by July I of this year.
There are signs that we may be returning to the most benign of all
recyclables, the refillable bottle. In one San Francisco neighborhood,
wine bottles are collected, washed, and shipped back to the wine country
for direct reuse. In some communities, dairies still use glass bottles.
The Rainier and Blitz Weinhard breweries sell their bottled beers in
Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana in refillable redemption bottles;
currently 78 percent are being refilled. You can ask your store to order
refillable bottles for soft drinks or beer (they're normally
referred to as tavern bottles).

METALS (9%) Half of all new aluminum cans come from recycling.
Making new cans from recycled ones uses 95 percent less energy than
producing cans from scratch. But aluminum isn't the only metal
container we use, just the most widely recycled. "Tin" cans,
for example, are reprocessed into steel, tin, and stannous fluoride for
toothpaste. Many frozen foods, from pizzas to pies, are packaged in
aluminum containers that can be picked up with these other metals.

PLASTICS (7%) No recyclable is more controversial than plastic.
Count on all plastics being part of the recycling effort soon, because
they are all recyclable, from the trays and wrapping your meat comes in
to soap and hand lotion bottles, milk jugs, and grocery bags. But for
now-until long-term plans for collection, transportation, processing,
and secondary use are in place-they're still trash. There are seven
broad types of plastic resins; check the bottoms of containers next time
you shop. New coding (mandatory by 1992) shows an identifying number
inside a triangle of chasing arrows; initials appear below the triangle.
Don't confuse these industry codes with the almost identical symbol
on recyclables. Here are the seven plastics types and some primary uses.
V (vinyl, polyvinyl chloride). Meat wrappers, many other translucent or
clear containers formerly made of glass. LDPE (low-density
polyethylene). Shopping bags, bread wrappers, garment bags, most
"shrink-wrap" packaging. PP (polypropylene). Margarine tubs,
straws, inner lining in paperboard boxes. Plastic bottle caps, rope, and
twine. PS (polystyrene). Styrene foam cartons, packing peanuts, clear
plastic containers for salad, plates, bowls, utensils. Other. Hybrid
packaging, multilayered, mixed material like some squeezable bottles.
Decidedly OTHER nonrecyclable. Currently, only PET and HDPE (especially
pop bottles and milk jugs) are being aggressively recycled, largely
because of their inclusion in bottle bills. Pilot programs are under way
for other plastics. One northern California grocery chain collects
returned LDPE shopping bags for recycling; push to have your grocer do
the same. Polystyrene products (egg cartons, clamshell hamburger
containers, utensils) have been banned in some communities, notably
Portland and Berkeley. These bans-and threats of further bans-have
spurred the polystyrene industry to develop recycling programs. Gilroy,
California, now has curbside polystyrene pickup. Another pilot
program-in Marysville, California-uses schools as collection points. In
general, plastics are recycled most efficiently when sorted by specific
resin. You may soon have a plastics bin in your curbside pickup;
technology is being developed that can scan and sort plastics. Recycled
plastics are used for pillow stuffing, scouring pads, checkbook covers,
truck-bed liners, flower pots, garden hoses, drainpipes, and many other
uses. Mixed plastics, known as commingled plastic, can be made into
weather-resistant plastic lumber (you may have seen park benches and
picnic tables made out of this greenish brown material). The objective
in recycling plastics is to take a product that had a short first useful
life (10 minutes for a hamburger container, a week for a milk jug) and
make it into something-like a drainpipe or landscape timber-that
won't find its way back into the waste stream for many years.
Buying such products will probably lead to better systems of recycling
plastics.

ALL THE OTHER STUFF (9%) Dispose of pesticides, paints, solvents,
and motor oil at a hazardous-waste center or other designated drop in
your community (for ways to dispose of hazardous wastes, see page 126 of
the June 1990 Sunset). Santa Monica has curbside motor-oil pickup; call
your city to find a collection center. Some communities are following a
lead from Scandinavia. Sweden has a voluntary battery-return program
that has contributed to significant drops in mercury and cadmium
contamination in ground water. Never throw away car batteries; turn them
in when you buy a new one (Oregon has a $5 car battery deposit). Push
for household battery collection in your community; use rechargeable
batteries when you can. Disposable diapers represent I to 2 percent of
landfill by volume. If you use them, try switching to cloth diapers for
normal day-to-day use and reserve disposables for trips and special
occasions. Most day-care centers require disposables; check the policy
at yours. Ask other parents who use the facility if they'd favor a
switch to cloth. Precycling: cutting down the waste you bring home Of
the approximately 31/2 pounds of trash each of us throws away every day,
about a third of that is packaging; by volume, packaging makes up half
of what we toss out. It also accounts for about a tenth of our grocery
bills. There are ways to cut down on the waste that you bring home. Here
are some strategies to consider when you shop. Many beverages, staples,
condiments, soaps, and other items are sold in recyclable containers or
in ones made from recycled materials. Cereal, detergent, and cake mix
boxes with gray (not white) insides are made from recycled paper. Look
for the chasing arrow symbol on the box, and the words "made from
recycled material." Buying products in recycled packaging supports
and encourages manufacturers to use recycled materials. Watch for
products that are overpackaged. Single-serving packages can be
especially inefficient. You can reduce such waste by using reusable
containers: send the juice to school in a thermos, take a coffee cup to
work, use a lunch box or cloth lunch bag, and use cloth napkins and
kitchen towels instead of paper ones. Be leery of plastic or paper
products that claim to be photodegradable or biodegradable packaging.
Garbage researchers at the University of Arizona have found that
so-called biodegradable items don't necessarily break down when
buried in a landfill. Instead, they're entombed and preserved.

COPYRIGHT 1991 Sunset Publishing Corp.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.